A Bunting We Will Go...A Tutorial in Fabric Buntings

I'm thinking maybe you've noticed my lack of crafting/posting lately, but that just means that I'm having a fun summer with my kids.  It doesn't mean that I've given up, or run out of ideas on you.  Never fear.  I'll be back in full force in a month or so.  But for now I have a quick little tutorial for you.  My friend Laura asked me if I would make a fabric bunting for her cute baby twins (boy and girl) who are turning one in a week.  Of course I said yes (I'm a nice friend like that) and I thought I'd snap some pictures this time to show you the process (my process anyway).  I know it's a bunting, nothing earth shattering, and certainly nothing new.  But this is just so easy that I had to share.  I've been making buntings for a few years now, and in the past I've made them much more complicated than this kind, but I've decided less work is better for something that will be put up for a birthday party.  Even if you had this in a room year round for decoration it would still hold up well.

The best tools to use while making a fabric bunting are a cutting mat and rotary cutter.  You could certainly accomplish this with some pinking shears, but I think it's much easier to use a rotary cutter.  I've switched out my regular blade for a pinking (scalloped edge) blade.  This helps keep your fabric from fraying, and plus it looks cute.

Besides your rotary cutter and mat you will need some triangle templates.  I made mine out of an old plastic pliable cutting board.  One triangle is 6 inches and one is 3 inches in length.  This is because I made two different size buntings, one medium size and one baby size.

Laura wanted polka dots in purple, pink, green and blue.  I found this cute fabric, only thing was that it was flannel, I have only used cotton for buntings before but I bought this anyway.  I bought a 1/4 of a yard of each color that I was using, and then I cut three inches off of each piece giving me a six inch and three inch strip in each color.

And after making this bunting I've decided that flannel is the new bunting fabric for me.  Serendipity!  It holds it's shape, doesn't wrinkle easily and it doesn't fray much.  So flannel it is.  Although cotton works well too.  In fact the pink in this bunting is cotton because I couldn't find a pink in the flannel.

Now you just use your rotary cutter and cut triangles with your template, it's easy peasy. 

You can get quite a few triangles out of your fabric since they fit back to back.  

Do the same thing with your 3 inch strips and before you know it you'll have more triangles than you know what to do with.  

Now it's time to string your triangles together.  I like to use ric rac, ribbon or quilt binding.  This time I used ric rac.  I think it looks particularly cute since it has a scalloped edge like my triangles.  I bought this package at Wal-Mart (I think it was like $1.15, and it has 2 1/2 yards of ric rac which makes a great size bunting).

Now it's time to sew.  If you don't sew I guess you could go to town with your glue gun, but I promise this is easy to sew.  Before I start I loop the end of the ric rac around the back of my first bunting triangle to give myself a little end loop for hanging the bunting.  Just hold it in place and sew.  I USE A ZIG ZAG STITCH to sew this so that everything gets caught in the stitches.  You could pin this, but that takes a lot of time and it's really easy to just keep feeding these into your presser foot.

As always make sure to back stitch at the beginning so that your stitches don't come undone.  And then just have at it, keep sewing and feeding new triangles into your stitch line.  

Now before you know it, you'll be done.  For the little baby buntings I like to cut my ric rac in half and make two, I think they are cute that way.  And I easily could have made twice the amount of buntings with my fabric  as I did if I would have had more ric rac.

I can't wait for these little babies to make it to Laura and her little babies. Give this a try, they make any celebration or holiday more fun, I promise!